Obama rides into box canyon on Iraq issue

Washington Times:

...

But new data from the Rasmussen Reports tracking poll showed that he has some ground to make up versus Mr. McCain on national security. The poll showed 55 percent of voters trusted Mr. McCain on the issue, 25 percentage points more than Mr. Obama.

On Iraq, specifically, Mr. McCain holds a narrower lead of 10 percentage points over Mr. Obama, according to the poll of 1,600 likely voters.

For months, Mr. Obama has sparred with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, his Democratic primary opponent, over her initial support for the war. And she has been forced to distance herself from her initial vote.

McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann said Mr. Obama's stance during the primary has left him nowhere to go and no way to react to changes in the situation on the ground.

"He's completely backed himself into a strategic corner where he realizes he has to say he wants to fight al Qaeda, but at the same time, because of the Code Pink-MoveOn.org crowd, he has to say he wants to get out of Iraq. And you can't reconcile the two," said Mr. Scheunemann, adding they see plenty of ground to fight on, going back to Mr. Obama's initial anti-war speech.

...


His response to McCain's challenge yesterday was both arrogant and ignorant. The current debate is not whether if was right to go into Iraq, but whether it is right to leave. It is not whether al Qaeda was in Iraq before, but whether we should leave them there now. In that context, Obama's position makes no sense.

Obama's response suggest he does not realize the debate has moved out of the Democrat echo chamber and into the real world.

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